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Breaking: Apartheid Divest Releases Statement Of Faculty Support

By Bwog Staff on
Feb 29, 201616 Comments

This morning, CU Apartheid Divest has released a statement from faculty who support its action in “calling upon the University to take a moral stance against Israel’s violence in all its forms.” The statement expresses that these faculty members are “professionally, intellectually, and morally invested in [their] University” and cites a 2002 student and faculty petition that called for divestment from firms that supplied Israel’s military with arms and military hardware.

Forty faculty members from a variety of different Columbia and Barnard departments have already signed this petition. CU Apartheid Divest invites other faculty members to join the cause by signing here.

Full faculty petition statement:

As both scholars and community members, we are professionally, intellectually, and morally invested in our University. We deem it our duty to hold our institution accountable for the ethical implications of its own actions, notably its financial investments and their implications around the world. In particular, we take issue with our financial involvements in institutions associated with the State of Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian lands, continued violations of Palestinian human rights, systematic destruction of life and property, inhumane segregation and systemic forms of discrimination.

In 2002, faculty members across various departments called for an end to our investment in all firms that supplied Israel’s military with arms and military hardware. Students, alumni, faculty, and staff agreed to attach their name to a call to remove the State of Israel’s social license in its use of asymmetrical and excessive violence against Palestinian civilians.

We now stand with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine as well as with Jewish Voice for Peace in calling upon the University to take a moral stance against Israel’s violence in all its forms. We demand that the University divest from corporations that supply, perpetuate, and profit from a system that has subjugated the Palestinian people for over 68 years. We note that our position unequivocally stands in support of a non-violent movement privileging human rights as the only means toward finding a political resolution.

We call on our University to recognize its undeniable role in, and influence upon, global systems, a distinguished role that comes with a commensurately weighty measure of moral accountability.

16 Comments

@Bwog needs to learn to be impartial Basic premise of journalism: if you’re writing about a conflict you should get quotes from both sides. I completely get that this story is newsworthy but you should at least reach out for comment (assuming you didn’t) from Aryah, etc.

@What? It’s news because a statement was released. If 40 faculty members released a statement in opposition, that would be news too. Reaching out to a student from Aryeh as if a quote from them can be put fairly on par with 40 professors would really be stacking the cards towards Apartheid Divest.

@My goodness Basically, just say it already Bwog, you don’t like Israel, we get it. We Israelis got the message. You don’t like us, you’re going to bully us on campus. That’s great. I’m going to go back to being a normal CU student now while you guys continue to shout in the background.

@My goodness I try not to give in to fear because I have seen enough in my life. You actively want me to suffer. You want confrontation. I lived through confrontation. I do have the privilege to be here. But I also have the honor and right to not abandon my country. I support the Palestinian people. But not the attitude towards Israelis on this campus. You can’t crush my spirit. Nothing could.

@My goodness We are left out of safe spaces and any liberal environment, discouraged from being active in this community, assumed to all be bad people because of the campus propoganda. I had to clarify that I was normal because I am not viewed as such. We are your peers, not government officials. But on this campus being Israeli and proud is making yourself a target for hatred. That is unfair to me and every other Israeli and Zionist (which, FYI, means someone who supports a Jewish state, and is not a bad word) on this campus.

@"impartial"? I’m not sure why accusations of bias are getting thrown around. Every sentence here is factual, in so far as this is a press release, not an actual news story or analysis. Bwog wrote up what happened; why the fuck are people expecting anything more of them? Go to Spec if you want quotes from people—they have reporters.

@Factual =/= impartial Since when is the only criterion for lack of bias having all the facts straight?
Suppose the NYT publishes a story titled “Palestinian Shot by Israeli Police Officer.” Turns out the Palestinian had just stabbed somebody, and the police officer shot xer before xe stabbed somebody else. Now, the title is surely factual, but isn’t it biased too? Anybody glancing over it would assume that the police officer shot the Palestinian out of hatred or for a bad reason. A better title might be “Palestinian Stabs Israeli; Shot by Police.”
My point is there are many other kinds of bias besides nonfactual reporting, which is by far the least common and most obvious. There is bias in presentation, in tone, in the order of information, in the selection of information. Surely these more subtle problems can exist without the article being erroneous, but still biased.